Music Minute: December 2017

As 2017 comes to an end, the staff at Minute Magazine would like to introduce a new blog installment called “Music Minute,” where editors share their favorite music picks of the month. Below are the tracks for December 2017 – take a listen as you enjoy this holiday season.

Notable lyrics: “I’m just young enough to still believe / but young enough not to know what to believe in”

Since their pre-hiatus emo days, bassist and songwriter Pete Wentz has always made sure that their songs would be poems for the troubled, and I love that most about this band. This song from their forthcoming album “Mania” just hits so close to home. With strong lyrics that scream “If I can live through this, I can do anything”, this anthem aims to inspire – and it surely does.

Notable lyrics: “Mrs. Potato Head, tell me / is it true that pain is beauty? / Does a new face come with a guarantee? / Will a pretty face make it better?”

This song is a powerful piece that talks about the pressure to change what you look like to fit in the societal standards of beauty. As a feminist and a firm believer of body positivity, I feel strongly about Melanie Martinez’s obvious criticism of plastic surgery, the risks it entail, and the repercussions that ensue. This song is dark, raw, and bold – perfectly complemented by Melanie’s unique style and brilliant voice.

Notable lyrics: “Is this the real life? / Is this just fantasy? / Caught in a landslide, / no escape from reality”

Honestly, who even doesn’t know Bohemian Rhapsody? This song is literal classic: unique in its form as it doesn’t fall under a single genre, but rather weaves together different sounds into six beautiful minutes. Fans speculate on what the song truly conveys, relating it to other literary texts such as the tale of Faust and Albert Camus’ The Stranger because of the many similarities in themes and tone.

“The Trio Project – Warrior” by Hiromi // reviewed by Poetry Editor Tanya Singh
This piece is a battle cry, the roar of a thousands lions collective, the dance of penguins, the bustle of magpies living in the anticipation of a rain shower some light years away. It is a sort of transformation. Hiromi, Anthony and Simon, have blessed this piece with the joy escaping their hands in music, reaching to us, you and me, their heart-beats synchronizing with all the notes you didn’t even know existed before. This is the kind of music that makes me feel that this is all beautiful, that the world is a possibility in the making. It transforms itself, it transforms me, we are both different people when the piece hits its last note. A part of me feels, this, now, is a healing, kind of like nan’s stories, full of magic, and all the more possible.

“Blue Drag” by Django Reinhardt // reviewed by Poetry Editor Tanya Singh
The first time I heard this, the guitar dancing a sort of hopscotch, I thought to myself, Reinhardt must really know what he wants from his life, to make others feel that the tinge, fading light is a want, still burning, asking — you want this, don’t you? How many lives would you be willing to live through again simply to feel, to know, that you want what you want? Want is endless, never ending, and sometimes almost bigness, self driven madness, that is both selfless and selfish. But this want feels like a soft prayer to yourself, an antidote for your fears, the guitar is reciting your name like a poem — doesn’t that feel warm? This piece is a want, a child-full desire to dream again. I listen to it often, often enough to remind myself that my dreams are colours, these pastels rising to a birth of another possibility.